Advertisements delivered by a postal service such as the US Postal Service, also known as direct mail or ‘junk mail’, is considered by an advertiser to be successful if the response rate by its recipients is around one percent (1%). It would be an advantage to deliver an advertisement to recipients particularly identified to be likely to respond to the advertisement to thereby increase the response rate of recipients to the advertisement.
Debit and credit card transaction handlers, as well as issuers of such cards, would like to build loyalty in the account holders in using their cards as well as awareness of the brand of the transaction handlers and issuers. One way of building such loyalty and brand awareness is to send an advertisement of offer to the account holder that can only be accepted by use of the account holder's branded card. In would be an advantage to increase the response rate to such advertisements while also building account holder loyalty and brand awareness.
Cashless consumer transactions with merchants are those that are typically payable on credit, debit and prepaid cards (Plastic Cards). The issuers of Plastic Cards (i.e., Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc.) and those entities handling the processing cashless transactions on such Plastic Cards (e.g.; American Express, MasterCard, Diner's Club, etc.) have Internet websites that offer card holders premiums for use for cards to conduct transactions to purchase a good or service. This Website service transaction, which lacks a middle man common to a brick and mortar purchase, is inherently low in the overhead to conduct the transaction. These issuers and transaction handlers earn revenue when a card holder uses their card to obtain the premium offers in this kind of purchase at these Websites. It would be an advantage to increase the volume of consumer purchases generated by the premium offer websites, thereby increasing revenues.
Fraud in cashless transactions conducted with Plastic Cards is a problem. This kind of fraudulent transaction might not be identified until long after the transaction has been conducted. By way of example, a consumer may not recognize a transaction conducted on the consumer's account as being fraudulent until it appears on a printed monthly statement for that account. It would be an advantage to provide a way for a consumer to recognize a transaction conducted on the consumer's account as being fraudulent long before the transaction appears on the consumer's printed monthly statement of account.